Hands-On Preview: Divekick – Dumb But Delicious

Hands-On Preview: Divekick – Dumb But Delicious

Divekick is dumb. Divekick is so dumb. Divekick is amazingly dumb. Divekick is the most fun I had at PAX East this year.

A crowd masses at the Iron Galaxy booth. Two buttons, one blue, one green, shine brightly at the edge of the crowd. Televisions seemingly shoot happiness directly into the queue patrons’ brains as they all smile dumbfoundedly. And right at the center of it all is Divekick.

Divekick is a simple fighter based on the (totally true) idea that the only thing inexperienced fighting game players (like me) need are the ability to jump and the ability to perform a fierce kick.

Instead of filling the game with complexity and frame-counting, they’ve decided to distill it down into its most basic of forms: diving and kicking.

And don’t even think about having to use an arcade stick. You can’t even move your character without diving or kicking. Two buttons, that’s all. Dive and kick. There is nothing else.

Oh yeah, and you die in one hit. Yet, somehow, defying everything, Divekick is addictive, fun, and complex in its own way.

Just as in any fighting game, you’ll start out by picking a character. How about playing as Dive? Or maybe Kick? That’s not a joke, they’re actual character names. I guess you could also be –Redacted-, the wolf man… thing.

You’ll also be prompted to choose a skill gem, a la Street Fighter X Tekken, which can affect things such as how well you dive or how well you kick. Hey, if you’re going to lampoon things that fighting game aficionados hate, you might as well go all the way, right? It even has a Kick Factor (like Marvel vs. Capcom 3’s X-Factor) that builds up as you dive and kick which speeds you up and makes your kicking angle a bit better. I swear I’m not making any of this up.

Then you proceed to dive and kick your way to your opponent. Reading them is key. One wrong move and you’ll get divekicked yourself. It’s intense. It’s simple. It’s perfect.

Once it’s released you’ll be able to divekick your friends online and, get this, it’s running GGPO netcode: the same netcode as Street Fighter III: Third Strike Online Edition.